Saturday, November 14, 2009

An idea...that morphed into some scribblings on a sheet of paper...and now may become a reality. So simply named but packed with an uncountable number of challenges to push the human body to the point of physical and mental exhaustion. The White Mountains 100 - a 100-mile human powered winter bike, ski and running race. Coming to interior Alaska in March 2010.

I am an outdoor recreationalist and have been so for the past 35 years here in the Interior and Fairbanks areas. I have snowmachined and driven my own dog team on a lot of trails in the Tanana Valley, including in the White Mountains. I am a 20 year member of the National Ski Patrol working here in the Fairbanks area as well as the Arctic Man Ski & Snowmachine Race at Summit Lake. I have used the White Mountains Public Recreational Area on multiple occasions and have stayed in the cabins that are part of the application/approval process necessary to hold this race.

I am well aware of some of the principals involved in the proposed 100 mile race and consider them to be assets of our community as well as people capable of hosting an event of this scale. They are organized, can be depended upon, and would bring another healthy outdoor event into focus which highlights living here in the Interior.

As far as I am concerned the cabins are Public Use cabins, not Individual Use cabins. Taking three of the cabins off the calendar for one weekend in March is a very reasonable request. I appreciate that mid-to-late March is a high request/use time period but that doesn't negate the fact that in this case 50 citizens would benefit from the use of these three cabins. And that doesn't take into account the race support staff that will also be using the cabins.

As a compromise, and one that would meet a concern expressed by the BLM personnel responsible for managing the White Mountains Recreational Area, I think requiring the use of portable toilet facilities also seems reasonable.

I don't consider this single request as a precedent for organized groups to be granted permission to utilize the White Mountains Recreational Area for their own purposes. Each request should be evaluated based on their own merits. As an example, if a snowmachine racing group wanted to use the trail system to host a snowmachine race I would submit my public opinion comment to deny using the Recreational Area for that event. And I would describe in detail my concerns about using the White Mountains Recreational Area for an event of that nature.

In closing, thank you for the opportunity to submit my comment and opinions as part of the management strategy for this pubic use area.